Sanchez questions Gajwani on RFEI for biodigester methane and Hunts Point plans
Sanchez asks about DEP's 2023 RFEI soliciting customers for biodigester methane. Gajwani reports strong interest and identifies the key opportunity of new digesters at Hunts Point, where excess biogas could be converted to renewable natural gas replicating the Newtown Creek model.
In 2023,
DEP published a RFEI soliciting potential customers for biodigester methane.
Can you provide any updates pertaining to that solicitation?
Yeah, sure.
So, yes, we put it out, and as you might be aware, we have 14 in-city wastewater treatment plants, and all of them have anaerobic digesters.
So we have 75 anaerobic digesters spread across all five boroughs.
As a result of that solicitation, we did get a lot of really interesting feedback, a lot of key opportunities from kind of, you know, things that could happen within, you know, the next five to ten years to things that could happen, you know, 50 years out.
And one of the key opportunities that was identified and, you know, we had kind of already been working on anticipating that it was going to come is that we're building these new digesters at the Hunts Point facility in the South Bronx, which you're familiar with.
And that's, you know, there's excess biogas that's going to be generated there.
There's an opportunity there to take the excess biogas.
So we use the gas, right, to heat our buildings seasonally and also to heat the digesters year-round.
But there is excess biogas, and so that biogas can be beneficially.
used and so we actually would like to replicate the model of Newtown Creek to be able to take that excess biogas and convert it to a renewable natural gas as a non-fossil alternative.